Reconstructing Radical Development Theory

Higgott R. , ‘Beyond the Sociology of Underdevelopment’, Social Analysis, Vol. 7, 1981, pp. 90–97; H. Bernstein, ‘Sociology of Development Versus Sociology of Underdevelopment', in D. Lehmann (ed.), Development Theory: Four Critical Studies (London: Cass, 1979); J., Browett, and R. Leaver, Crises for Global Capitalism and the Crisis in Development Thinking (Duplicated Manuscript, Politics, Flinders University, SA, 1987); C. A. Barone, Marxist Thought on Imperialism (London: Macmillan, 1985); and M. Etherington, Theories of Imperialism (London, Croom Helm, 1984).

Harle V. , The Political Economy of Food (Westmead, Saxon House, 1978).

Thompson W. R. (ed.), Contending Approaches to World Systems Analysis (London: Sage, 1983), p. 39.

Clairmonte F. Cavanagh J. , ‘Third World Debt Crisis Threatens Collapse of World Trade and Financial Systems, I. F. D. A. Dossier, Vol 59, May/June, 1987, pp. 43–50.

Bank World , World Development Report (London, Oxford University Press, Various years).

Berg A. , Malnutrition: What can be Done? (Baltimore, World Bank, 1987); and The Guardian, 20 September 1987, p. 8.

Figure 1 represents the total world income distribution. For specific country examples of a similar form see Jain S. , The Size Distribution of Income: A Compilation of Data (N. J.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975); and D. Denslow, and W. Tyler, ‘Perspectives on Poverty and Income in Brazil', World Development, Vol. 12, No. 10, 1984, pp. 1019–1028.

Bank World , op. cit., 1980, 1986.

Bank World , op. cit., 1986.

Arndt H. W. , ‘The Trickle-down Myth’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 32, No. 1, 1983, pp. 1–10.

Kuznets S. , Modern Economic Growth: Rate Structure and Spread (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966).

Loehr E. G. W. Powelson J. P. , The Economics of Development and Distribution (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1981), p. 129.

Trainer F. E. , ‘A Critical Examination of “The Ultimate Resource” and “The Resourceful Earth'”, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Vol. 30, No. 1, August 1986, pp. 19–38.

Trainer F. E. , Abandon Affluence! (London: Zed, 1985), p. 81.

McGowan P. T. Kordan B. , ‘Imperialism in World System perspective’, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 1, March 1981, pp. 43–68.

Browett J. , ‘Industrialisation in the Global Periphery: The Significance of the New Industrialising Countries of East and South East Asia’, Environment and Planning, Vol. 4, 1986, pp. 401–418; Y. C. Park ‘Export-led Development: The Korean Experience 1960–78', in E. Lee (ed.), Export-led Industrialisation and Development (Geneva: I.L.O. 1981), Chapter 4; and B. Hettne, ‘Self Reliance and Destabilization in the Caribbean and Central America: The Cases of Jamaica and Nicaragua', Scandinavian Journal of Development Alternatives, March 1986, 5–18.

Warren W. , Imperialism: The Pioneer of Capitalism (London: New Left Books, 1980).

Pilkington F. , ‘Bill Warren and Imperialism’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 11, No. 4, 1981, pp. 169–189.

Bienfeld M. Godfrey M. (eds.), The Struggle for Development (New York: Wiley, 1982) p. 56.

Fitt Y. , The World Economic Crisis (London: Zed Books, 1978), p. 161; and S. Smith ‘The Ideas of Samir Amin: Theory or Tautology?', Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1, 1980, p. 90.

Browett J. , ‘The Newly Industrialising Countries and Radical Theories of Development’, World Development, Vol. 13, No. 7, 1985, pp. 789–803; and E. L. Wheelwright, ‘The New International Division of Labour in the Age of the Transnational Corporation', in J. Friedman, E. L. Wheelwright and J. Connell, Development Strategies in the Eighties, Monograph 1, Development Studies Colloquium, Town and Country Planning, University of Sydney, 1980, pp. 43–58.

Browett , 1985, op. cit., note 21, p. 795; and Browett, op. cit., note 16, p. 406.

Worsley P. , ‘One World or Three: A Critique of the World System Theory of Immanuel Wallerstein’, Socialist Register, 1980, pp. 298–338.

In a recent review of summary statements I tabulated approximately 100 quotations generally concluding that development has done little or nothing for the mass of Third World people. At best only three quotations were found which could be interpreted as favourable comment on achievements or prospects, Trainer F.E. , Third World Development: Documents (edited collection, Menzies Library, University of New South Wales, Open Reserve WP0164, 1986).

Abercrombie K. , ‘Intensive Livestock Feeding’, Ceres, Jan-Feb, 1982, pp. 38–42.

Dammann E. , The Future in Our Hands (London: Pergamon, 1979).

Tanzer M. , The Race for Resources (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1980.

Smith , op. cit., note 20, p. 14; S. Smith, ‘Class Analysis vs World Systems: Critique of Samir Amin's Typology of Underdevelopment', Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1982, p. 13; and S. Amin, Unequal Development (London: Harvester Press, 1976).

Mack A. Leaver R. , ‘Radical Theories of Development: An Assessment’, in Mack A. (ed.), Imperialism, Intervention and Development (London: Croom Helm, 1981) pp. 257–285.

Mandel E. , Late Capitalism (London: New Left Books, 1976).

Harrison P. , Inside the Third World (Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1979).

UNCTAO Dossier, Geneva, April, 1987.

South, January 1987, p. 41.

Op. cit., note 4, p. 45.

Schiffer J. , ‘The Changing Post-war Pattern of Development: The Accumulated Wisdom of Samir Amin’, World Development, Vol. 9, No. 6, 1981, pp. 515–537. By 1984 the LDC rate, 23%, exceeded the rich Western country rate, 21%. See World Bank, op. cit., note 5.

Baran P. , The Political Economy of Growth (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1957) p. 402; and A. G. Frank Capitalist Development in Latin America (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1967).

Warren W. ‘Imperialism and Capitalist Industrialisation', New Left Review, Vol. 81, 1973, 3–44.

Schiffer , op. cit., note 35, p. 528; and Browett, op. cit., note 21, p. 790.

Worsley , op. cit., note 23.

Brenner R. , ‘On the Origins of Capitalist Development (A Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism’, New Left Review, No. 104, 1977, pp. 25–92.

Baran P. Sweezy P. , Monopoly Capital (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1966).

Wallerstein I. , ‘The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. XVI, January 1974, pp. 387–415; Op. cit., note 40; and K. Griffin and J. Gurley, ‘Radical Analysis of Imperialism, the Third World, and the Transition to Socialism’ A Survey Article', Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XXIII, September 1985, 1089–1143.

Brenner , 1977, op. cit., note 40, p. 33.

Foster-Carter A. , ‘The modes of production controversy, New Left Review, No. 107, Jan-Feb. 1978, pp. 47–77.

Mafeje A. , Science, Ideology and Development (Uppsala: 000, 1978).

Taylor J. G. , From Modernization to Modes of Production (London: Macmillan, 1979).

Loshe Powelson , 1981, op. cit., note 12, pp. 296–297; and Griffin and Gurley, op. cit., note 43, p. 114.

Munch R. , ‘State Intervention in Brazil: Issues and Debates’, Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 6, No. 4, 1979, pp. 16–31; D. Slater, ‘State and Regional Questions in Latin America', Mimeo Amsterdam Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation, 1982); and Thompson, op. cit., note 3, p. 63.

Galup H. , ‘Debate on Capitalism and Development: The Theories of Samir Amin and Bill Warren’, Capital and Class, Vol. 28, Spring 1986; op. cit., note 17; and J. Gurley, ‘Economic Development: A Marxist View', in K. Jameson and C. Wilber, (eds.) Direction in Economic Development (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979) pp. 206–207.

Howe G. N. , ‘Warren's Revision of the Marxist Critique’, MERIP Reports, Vol. 13 No. 7, 1983, pp. 23–25.

For extensive documentation see Klare M. , Supplying Repression: U.S. Support for Authoritarian Regimes Abroad (Institute for Policy Studies, 1977); N. Chomsky and E. S. Herman, The Political Economy of Human Rights, Vol. 1., The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (Boston: South End, 1979); N. Chomsky, Turning the Tide; U.S. Intervention in Central America (London: Pluto, 1986); and E. S. Herman, The Real Terror Network (Boston: South End, 1982).

Herman , 1982, op. cit., note 51, pp. 3, 115.

Brandt W. , North-South: A Programme for Survival (London: Pan, 1980; and Brandt W. , Common Crisis: North-South Cooperation for World Recovery (London: Pan, 1983).

Trainer F. E. , ‘Brandt Reports I and II - Common Mistake’, Science and Public Policy, Vol. 10, No. 6, 1983, pp. 285–288.

These connections are detailed in Trainer, 1983, op. cit., note 14, Chapter 8; F. E. Trainer, ‘Peace Justice Affluence', D. Green and D. Headon (eds.), Imagining the Real (Sydney: A.B.C. Enterprises, 1987; and F. E. Trainer and R. Sharp, ‘End or New Beginnings?', Chapter 13, in Apocalypse No! (Sydney: Pluto, 1984), pp. 267–287.

Chomsky Notably , op. cit., note 51; and N. Chomsky, ‘The Cold War and the Superpowers', Monthly Review, Vol. 1, No. 10, 1981.

A. Carey documents a similar phenomenon; the periodic massive pro-business propaganda campaigns that have been launched to restore public acceptance of the free enterprise system. A central theme in these has been exploitation of fear of communism, thus contributing to East-West tensions; Carey A. , ‘Conspiracy or Groundswell’, in Coghill K. , (ed.), The New Right's Australian Fantasy (Ringwood: Penguin, 1987), pp. 3–19.

For a comprehensive review of the argument as it stood in the early 1980s, see Trainer, Op. cit., note 14.

Noyce P. , ‘Science, Non-Science and the Greenhouse Project’, In Future, Vol 5, April/May 1987, pp. 28–30.

Guppy N. , ‘Tropical Deforestation: A Global View’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 4, Spring, 1984, pp. 928–966; Trainer, op. cit., note 14; and a more recent estimate of 27 million ha. pa is given in E. Hosmer, ‘Paradise Lost: The Ravaged Rainforest', Multinational Monitor, June 1987, pp. 6–8.

Skinner J. , ‘Big Mac and the Tropical Forest’, Monthly Review, Vol. 37, No. 7, 1985, pp. 25–32.

Trainer , op. cit., note 14, Chapter 3.

Trainer F. E. , ‘The Limitations of Alternative Energy Sources’, Conservation and Recycling, Vol. 7, No. 1, 1984, pp. 27–42.

Trainer , op. cit., note 13, Chapter 10.

Trainer , 1985, op. cit., note 14; and F. E. Trainer, ‘How Cheaply Can We Live: A Survey of Alternative Lifestyle Expenses', Ekistics, Vol. 304, Jan-Feb 1984, pp. 61–66.

Dasgupta S. , ‘Towards a No Poverty Society’, Social Development Issues, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1982, pp. 4–14.

It is important to distinguish this conception of self-sufficient development from that increasingly referred to in recent development literature as ‘self-reliant’ development. This term mainly stands for establishing greater reliance on regional trading arrangements between Third World countries. Such a strategy remains conventional in most respects.

Mollison B. , Permaculture II (Stanley, Tasmania: Tagari, 1978); and B. Mollison and D. Holmgren, Permaculture I (Hobart: University of Tasmania, 1978).

It should be noted that these convictions derive primarily from some 20 years personal experience in developing an alternative lifestyle and technology demonstration site where a variety of the technologies mentioned in this section are in use, and where the per capita expenditure is well under the Australian poverty line.

Marx K. , ‘Communist Manifesto’, Selected Works in One Volume, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Lawrence and Wishart.

Marx K. , Capital, Vol. 1 (Chicago: Charles Kerr, 1905).

Trainer F. E. , ‘How cheaply can we live? A survey of alternative lifestyle expenses’, Ekistics, Vol. 304, Jan-Feb. 1984, pp. 61–66.

Kitching G. , Development and Underdevelopment in Historical Perspective: Population Nationalism and Industrialization (London: Methuen, 1982), p. 180.

Bideleux R. , Communism and Development (London: Methuen, 1985).

Bideleux , 1985, Ibid.; and S. N. Macfarlane, Superpower Rivalry and Third World Radicalism (London: Croom Helm, 1985).

Bideleux argues that at the very end of his life Marx came to endorse the possibility of a direct route. Shanin also discusses this theme; Shanin T. , Late Marx and the Russian Road (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983).

Sutcliffe R. , ‘Industry and Underdevelopment Re-examined’, Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 21, 1984/5, p. 121.

Ibid., p. 132.